


Like Father, Like Son

by Donotquestionme



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Burns, Coomer and Bubby are Gordon's parents AU, Gen, Missing Scene, Panic Attacks, family of three au, mentions of past trauma, tube baby gordon au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donotquestionme/pseuds/Donotquestionme
Summary: After discovering Gordon inherited his powers of pyrokinesis, Bubby suddenly realizes how alike Gordon is to him. In ways he wishes he wasn't.('Missing Scene' tribute fic set in HoldYourBreathForNow's 'Family of Three' au showing the events of the second chapter of 'A Match Lit in the Lantern of My Heart' from Bubby's perspective.)
Relationships: (established), Bubby & Gordon Freeman, Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	1. To Condemn the Child's Design

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holdyourbreathfornow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdyourbreathfornow/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Match Lit in the Lantern of my Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27843370) by [holdyourbreathfornow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdyourbreathfornow/pseuds/holdyourbreathfornow). 



Bubby was pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor as he and the others waited anxiously for any news from Darnold or Gordon.

He chewed on his thumb nail anxiously, a bad habit he’d picked up a long time ago and never been able to kick. He often felt the need to gnaw on things with his sharp teeth, especially when he was nervous, and, more often than not, it was his nails and cuticles that took the brunt of the damage. 

He just hated this damned waiting! Not knowing what was happening, not knowing what to do. It was maddening!

None of the others seemed to be handling it any better. 

Harold was staring, silently and unblinking, into the middle distance, arms folded and hands gripping his upper arms so hard Bubby worried for the integrity of the metal. 

Tommy was shaking, stroking Sunkist over and over to try to calm himself out of a full panic attack while his father stood next to the two of them, face and mannerisms as unreadable as always, but knowing him as well as Bubby had come to, he could still tell the man was worried. 

Benrey was sitting in the corner of the room, clutching their head and rocking back and forth slightly. Their form twitched and shuddered.

Benrey had taken the news of Montobar’s return and subsequent threatening of Gordon arguably the worst of any of them. At first they’d seized up, freezing like a deer in headlights, then they’d seemed to completely lose control of their physical form, growing, shifting, and changing in accordance with their rage and despair. Teeth and claws jutted out at all angles, mouths and limbs sprouting and flailing as ear splitting, shrieking notes of sweet voice filled the air with a slew of blinding lights. 

It seemed as though their emotions were physically warring with each other over the battlefield of their body, parts trying to draw into themselves in fear and form protective plating, while other parts lashed out, slashing at the air with claws and teeth like razors, while still more moaned and sobbed tears the same ever shifting colors that poured from their many mouths. 

They’d immediately tried to run off to find Gordon (hell they’d all wanted to) but Tommy managed to console them enough to get them to understand the infuriating truth of the situation at hand, which was that they simply didn’t know exactly Montobar had up his sleeve. 

Darnold had told them Montobar had been vague in his threats besides an insinuation of something to do with controlling Tommy’s father. While the G-Man had assured them there was no danger of that specifically, they still didn’t know what else Montobar could have at his disposal. 

No one knew the extent of exactly what had been done to Gordon during his time at Black Mesa, not even Gordon himself. No one but Montobar. If there was something else he knew, something else he had that he could use against Gordon and they showed up and forced him to show his hand…

Bubby shuddered. 

No, they had to find out exactly what his demands were. Exactly what he had to back up his threats. Then they could act. Then they could find a way to subvert whatever twisted ace he might have up his sleeve.

And Bubby could finally deep fry the fucker. 

For everything Montobar had done to Bubby’s son, to his whole family, he’d make sure the piece of shit’s life ended roasting alive. He’d regret ever living through the fall of Black Mesa, Bubby would make  _ sure _ of that. 

Bubby nearly jumped out of his skin when Coomer’s phone ringtone went off. 

In an instant, the whole room was on their feet and crowded around Coomer, who already had picked up, phone held to his ear.

“What’s happening?” he asked, not bothering with any kind of greeting. “Is Gordon--” 

Bubby could hear frantic speaking from the other side of the call, cutting Coomer off, but it was too quiet to hear what was being said.

“Fire?!” Coomer exclaimed. “But what--” 

“What- what’s he saying?” Tommy cried, “Is Gordon al-alri- is-is he ok?”

“Oh my God, man, just put the fucking thing on speaker!” Bubby exclaimed, grabbing the phone from his husband’s hand and pressing the speaker symbol. Darnold’s voice cut in, mid sentence.

“--and the windows just blew out and when I went in he was just--it was an inferno!” 

“Gordon? Gordon good, yeah? He’s...he’s not--” Benrey asked, practically crawling over Tommy to get closer to the phone.

“He’s alive,” Darnold said, and the group let out a collective breath of relief. “But he’s all burned up. He’s...it’s bad. It’s real bad.”

Benrey’s form started to shift again, but this time with a singular, focused emotion at its core: rage. 

“Montobar rigged the place to ex-ex- to blow up?” Tommy said with a shudder. “After-after all that? It was just to hurt-to hurt Gordon?”

“He couldn’t let us live,” Benrey said, mouth stretching and jaw filling with long, sharp fangs. “Can’t have his toys, so he’ll just  _ break ‘em.” _

“No, no, you don’t understand!” Darnold said. “Montobar didn’t start the fire, Gordon did! He  _ was  _ the fire!”

Bubby nearly dropped the phone, his whole body going numb. 

It couldn’t be.

“Darnold, what do you mean he  _ was  _ the fire?” Bubby demanded, voice shaking.

“I don’t know what it was,” Darnold said. “I just went in and Gordon was at the center of this huge plume of fire and his eyes were glowing! The more he panicked it seemed like the flames just got bigger and bigger! When I got him to calm down, they went out but he’s still really really hot. Like, melting the seat of my car hot.”

Bubby’s heart pounded in his ears as memories overtook him, unbidden.

_ The exhilaration of freedom, but also the fear,the pain. Perfluorocarbon being painfully ejected from his lungs. He knew what it felt like to drown before what it felt like to breathe.  _

_ Everything so loud, so bright. His muscles weak. Scientists everywhere, poking and prodding him. Too much. Too much. Hands grabbing at him, voices yelling, demanding.  _

_ Anger feeding that ever present spark in his chest until it welled up, pushing out through his skin. Too hot. Too hot! Panicking but the panic just fed the heat, the  _ **_flame_ ** _. Then just screaming.  _

_ Screaming,screaming, screaming. _

The phone slipped from Bubby’s fingers.

Luckily Harold grabbed it with an extendo-arm before it could hit the ground.

“Where are you now?” Harold said, voice low and firm, the way it got when he was pushing all emotion aside to just deal with the situation at hand.

“We’re at least forty five minutes away, still,” Darnold said. “I’m going,uh,pretty far over the speed limit already but there’s only so fast I can go.”

G-Man straighted up.

“I will...warp to you to, retrieve him,” he said, but Coomer caught his arm before he could make any motion to do so.

“No,” Coomer said. “We need you here. There’s some things we’re going to need…”

Bubby didn’t hear the end of Coomer’s sentence, nor whatever was said in return, already staggering out of the room and down the basement stairs, hand clamped over his mouth, as if he was going to be sick. He wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t.

Bracing himself against the cement walls of the basement, Bubby struggled to catch his breath. Muscle memory began to draw his flames to his skin, so used to being his outlet for such extreme emotion. He retched, forcing his fire deep down in his chest as his stomach seemed to tie itself in knots. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, but all he could see behind his eyelids were images of flesh burning, phantom screams echoing in his ears. Sometimes his, sometimes Gordon’s.

A hand touched Bubby’s shoulder and he pulled away sharply, spinning around, teeth bared and hands raised to defend himself.

His hands fell, along with his face, as he saw Coomer before him, arms up in a placating gesture. 

“Fuck,” Bubby huffed, heart still racing. “Sorry, Harold, I just..."

He covered his eyes with a hand, pushing his glasses up his face, as if it could hold back the tears threatening to fall.

When Harold placed a hand on Bubby’s arm this time, he didn’t pull away.

“He’s got burns over most of his body,” Coomer said. “He won’t be able to heal that on his own, especially not if he can’t cool down. You know what he needs.”

Bubby moved his hand from his eyes to over his mouth, eyes still firmly shut. He knew what Coomer was going to say. Gordon needed to be put back into the cellular growth fluid he and Bubby had been grown in, the same way Bubby did when he needed to regrow or repair a large amount of tissue. Bubby knew he knew Coomer was right. But that didn’t make it any easier to bear, especially since he knew exactly what that would mean they needed.

“His old tube is far too small now,” Coomer continued. “He’ll...need one of yours. I already sent G to get the one we kept in storage, but I’ll need your help getting it running again.”

Bubby squeezed his eyes shut impossibly harder. He wouldn’t cry. He couldn’t break down now. Not when his family needed him. But the idea of facing his tube now, with the memory of being dragged by military men back to the one in Black Mesa and shoved inside, slamming his fists against the unforgiving glass until his knuckles were bruised and throbbing, still so fresh in his mind...it was too much.

“I...I can’t…” he moaned, voice cracking. 

Bubby felt Coomer’s hands grab him by the shoulders and he at last opened his eyes.

“I know. I know how hard it is for you,” Coomer said,his eyes pained, but determined. “And I would never ask you to, if I didn’t have to. But your son needs you.”

His face softened, as did his voice.

“I need you, too,” he said. “I can’t do this alone.”

Bubby swallowed hard and set his jaw. He nodded.

Coomer let go of Bubby’s shoulders and took Bubby’s hands in his own. 

Bubby pressed his forehead to Coomer’s and for a quiet moment, they just breathed. Their moment was quickly ended when a flash of green lit up the basement and, out of thin air, appeared the G-Man, along with the semi-disassembled tube that Coomer and Bubby kept in a storage unit in case of emergencies, along with a few barrels of the cellular growth fluid starter, which would need to be properly prepared before it could be put in the tube itself.

“I believe, this issss...all you, require.” G said.

Bubby adjusted his glasses and pulled up the sleeves of his dress shirt.

“Alright, we don’t have long and we need to get this fully running before Darnold gets back here with Gordon,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”


	2. Can’t Escape Your Genes

Bubby stood, leaning back against the cold cement wall of the basement, watching as Gordon floated, unconscious, in the greenish fluid of his tube. 

Gordon had been out for nearly twenty hours, and Bubby had been watching him the entire time. His condition was stable now, but it had been touch and go for a little while in the beginning. 

He had had burns over nearly eighty percent of his body and his internal body temperature had been critically high, far hotter than the average person could survive. He’d been hot enough that the cellular growth fluid he was suspended in would boil before it could absorb into his tissue to help him regenerate. The first few hours had been a fight to lower his temperature before the fever alone killed him. The only saving grace had been the fact that the heat had cauterized his wounds, saving him from losing too much blood. 

Thankfully, he’d at least not seemed to have seared his lungs, so he didn’t need to have any of the fluid in them to help them heal. As a perfluorocarbon, it was perfectly breathable, but the experience of switching back and forth between it and air was painful and terrifying every time, as Bubby knew from experience. It was much preferable to keep him hooked up to an oxygen mask as he was.

Now his temperature was within a safe range (for a pyrokinetic, anyway) and he was already showing signs of significant skin regrowth, but someone still had to be with him at all times in case there was another temperature spike. Others had come in and out throughout the day, but Bubby had been a fixture of the hastily assembled med lab their basement had become.

Seeing Gordon when G had first brought him inside, burned, bloodied, and feverish, had been so much worse than Bubby could have prepared himself for. Of course, seeing their child hurt is a nightmare for any parent, but when he first saw Gordon, limp and babbling in G’s arms, another feeling struck him like a punch to the gut:

_ He’s like me. _

And suddenly, looking down at his son, Bubby could see nothing but himself. An unstable Black Mesa experiment that lost control of their power, half dead from a force their creators never bothered to help them control. A product of a heartless, cruel company who couldn’t care less about the lives of their ‘experiments’. 

Now, seeing him suspended in that familiar greenish goo, the strange, almost out-of-body feeling was unshakeable.

Bubby always thought of Gordon as taking entirely after Coomer in looks, what with his unruly locks and bright green eyes but now, with most of his hair burned away and his emerald eyes shut...

God, how had Bubby never realized how alike they looked?

Coomer and he had never gotten to see Joshua outgrow his baby fat that rounded out his little cheeks. They’d missed the years where he grew into his ears and nose. They’d had that time stolen from them.

But now, with the new skin, still thin and tightly stretched over bone, Bubby could recognize his own defined cheekbones in Gordon’s face; his slight upturn of the nose; his sharpness of the jaw.

It seemed one moment he was looking at his son, the next he was looking at himself. One moment: a father watching over his child, the next: a scientist overseeing a creation he’d grown, but hadn't raised. Made, but hadn't protected. Built, but with no consideration of the repercussions of the components included. 

In each moment, his emotions could make no sense of themselves. Part of him had been disappointed, way back when he’d first held Joshua in his arms, that their child had only seemed to take after one of his parents. That part now felt a swell of affection, pride, almost, at any similarity. Another part of him had been relieved to see his child unafflicted by any of the curses of his own genetics. That part now was sick with guilt and shame. Shame for the burden of his blood, and shame at the feeling of pride he felt seeing that connection between him and his son displayed before him.

God damn him for how, under all the horror and grief, that prideful part clung even to the idea of Gordon sharing his pyrokinesis; for that tangible connection to his child.

He saw his son. 

He hated himself for the shame.

He saw himself. 

He hated himself for the pride.

Bubby rubbed at his eyes, itchy and sore from lack of sleep. 

His eyes snapped back open as he heard a faint bubbling noise from the direction of Gordon’s tube. 

The goo around Gordon’s body was beginning to churn and simmer.

Shit, his temperature was spiking again! 

Bubby practically launched himself off the wall and over to the tube control panel, ready to start another emergency coolant release, but stopped when he saw that, while Gordon’s external temperature was going up, his internal was actually going slowly down. 

His fever wasn’t spiking again, he was expending excess energy out into the surrounding fluid to cool himself down. Without being able to properly regulate his temperature equilibrium, it wouldn’t do much in completely returning him to a normal range, but the fact that his body was responding to internal stimuli and trying to achieve homeostasis meant that his brain must have been coming out of the deeper levels of unconsciousness.

Gordon’s brow furrowed and he took in a deeper, less rhythmic breath.

He was waking up. 

Bubby quickly moved from the control panel to directly in front of the glass, hand pressed against the cool surface and breath hitched in his throat.

Gordon’s eyes squeezed shut, then opened, blinking blearily in the murky fluid. He shook his head slowly, as if he were trying to clear his thoughts through the movement.

“Hey, Freckles,” Bubby said, loud enough he hoped Gordon would be able to hear it inside the tube, but hopefully not so loud as to startle him.

Gordon, still clearly disoriented, leaned forward towards Bubby’s voice and his forehead bumped against the inside of the glass. He winced in pain, and Bubby heard the beeping of his heart rate monitor quicken in slight panic. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Bubby assured him. “You need to breathe, Gordon. You’re just in an old tube of mine. Family tradition, huh?”

He chuckled at that, a small, sad grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, but Gordon seemed to have already worn himself out, his eyes drooping closed again.

Bubby rapped his knuckles against the glass lightly.

“Go back to sleep kiddo,” he said, and his ghost of a grin faded.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, but Gordon had already slipped back into unconsciousness.


	3. You'll Always Be Your Father's Child

Coomer double checked the control panel screen displaying Gordon’s vitals for what must have been the hundredth time. He knew they were all stable, but he couldn’t help a bit of parental overcaution.

Gordon had been out of the danger zone of temperature fluctuations since he’d first woken up, briefly, almost nine hours ago. It’s why Coomer’d been able to convince Bubby to finally change over watch of Gordon to him and go to sleep in the first place. He’d assumed that, after alerting everyone to Gordon having no longer been comatose (to everyone’s great relief), Bubby would be glad to finally rest, but instead Coomer had had to argue that there was almost no chance for any kind of relapse at this point for nearly ten minutes before Bubby finally relented (a headlock might also have been involved at some point). 

Bubby had been  _ adamant _ about staying, despite his clear exhaustion, to the point where Coomer almost worried Bubby doubted in his ability to do so himself, but Bubby had gotten cagey when Coomer pressed him for the cause of his hesitancy. He drew into himself and quickly agreed to give up his vigil, hurrying away before Coomer could inquire further.

Certainly not an entirely comforting sign in regards to Bubby’s emotional state, but Coomer couldn’t say he was faring very well himself. He’d barely been able to sleep at all, jerking awake every time he drifted off, thinking he heard the blaring of Gordon’s tube’s vital readout alarm, indicating another temperature spike or drop in blood oxygen levels or erratic heart palpitations. 

Coomer hated seeing Gordon in that tube.

He and Bubby had discussed, back when they first conceived (ha!) of the idea of creating their child in a fashion similar to Bubby’s own creation, the likely necessity of supplementary time in a growth tube later on in Joshua’s life. Bubby had needed many throughout his life and, though Gordon’s creation and genetic structure was much more stable than Bubby’s had been initially, due to being based off of existing DNA, instead of entirely from scratch, as Bubby had, it was still likely that, somewhere along the line, his body might need a “tune up”, so to speak.

They’d planned to build him his own tube around ten years old for that purpose, but then...well, they hadn’t ended up needing to. 

So now, instead, Gordon floated inside an old tube of Bubby’s they’d specifically made for emergencies, ever since a terrifying incident back when Bubby had first been able to live outside of Black Mesa and they’d moved into this house together. The sudden changes and stress of living outside of Black Mesa for the first time caused Bubby’s molecular structure to almost entirely destabilize. 

The frantic drive back to the laboratory, Bubby in the passenger seat, condition rapidly deteriorating, was one of the most frightening experiences of Harold’s life. 

Since then, they’d made sure they always had a tube similar to Bubby’s at Black Mesa available outside of the facility. Years of fine tuning had stabilized Bubby’s physical makeup significantly, and eventually they’d moved the tube to storage, not having needed it in many years, but still wanting to have it available in case of emergencies. 

Coomer supposed that was part of what made seeing Gordon like this so terrible. 

This tube was one tied to painful and terrifying memories. Unlike Gordon’s original one, which was associated with the creation of their child, and even Bubby’s tube at Black Mesa, which at least held memories of how they met, this one was associated only with things going horribly wrong. 

And how wrong they’d gone now.

Coomer had seen Gordon hurt before, of course, during the Resonance Cascade, but it had been different this time, to an extent he hadn’t expected. 

Since learning of Gordon’s true identity, the memories of every time he’d come to harm, come so close to death, during their journey through Black Mesa and Xen, had haunted him, of course, knowing retroactively that it was his own child that he’d seen so battered and broken. 

Coomer hadn’t expected just how different it would be seeing Gordon hurt while already knowing it was his child. He’d felt sick to his stomach, like he was going to break down or pass out. Luckily, Harold Coomer was nothing if not good at compartmentalising, and had managed to keep it together while they worked to stabilize Gordon.

Now, thankfully, it seemed Gordon was out of the woods. His skin had grown back, to at least some extent, over nearly every burned area, and his temperature was completely stable, if still high. Likely, it was as low as it was going to get without him intentionally lowering it. 

Which was precisely why Harold was making very sure everything was in no danger of sudden change for the worse. He needed to leave for a moment to talk to Bubby. Gordon’s temperature was still high enough to simmer the fluid around him and he’d likely need instruction from Bubby on how to control his newly developed powers before he could be released from the tube. The sooner such instruction could begin, the better. 

One last check, and Coomer was confident enough to leave Gordon alone long enough to fetch Bubby. 

Climbing up the basement stairs into the main hallway, he glanced into the living room. 

Benrey and Tommy were fast asleep, leaning shoulder to shoulder on the couch, having apparently worn themselves out with worry. 

Coomer smiled. He was glad Gordon had the two of them, it was clear how much they all cared about each other. He didn’t see Bubby in the room however, nor in the connected kitchen, so he didn’t dwell there.

He headed towards the room to his and Bubby’s room, but paused as he reached the door. He could hear a faint noise coming from inside like a soft sniffling and uneven breathing--

Oh.

He opened the door just a crack to see Bubby sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands and body shaking with soft sobs he was clearly trying to muffle. 

Coomer rapped his knuckles against the door.

Bubby startled, and whipped his head around to see Coomer. His face was red and his cheeks streaked with tears.

“Fuck--I-” Bubby roughly wiped at his face to clear away the tears, and fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand. “Harold, I didn’t...I didn’t hear you…”

Coomer simply sat on the bed next to him as he composed himself. 

“How’s...how is he?” Bubby asked, after clearing his throat. He stared at the floor, not looking towards Coomer.

“He’s stable. Tissue regrowth is coming along well. He’s as stable as I think he’ll be able to get until he can bring his temperature down,” Coomer replied. “I think it’s best to start teaching him to control it sooner rather than later. If he can learn at least how to regulate his temperature while he’s still in there, he’s far less likely to lose control again as soon as he comes out of the tube. You can work on teaching him all your flashier tricks once he’s out.”

Coomer chuckled, lightly. 

Bubby,however, only turned even further away from him.

“Do...do you think that we could…” Bubby trailed off, then started again. “That tube is made for post decanting genetic alteration. If we could just...if we could nullify or remove the gene responsible for pyrokinesis…”

“What?!” Coomer cried, agape. “Bubby you can’t be serious! You know better than anyone the risks involved with that! That tube is made for emergency  _ stabilization _ , not tampering with genetic code when there’s no reason!”

“No reason? There’s a damn good reason!” Bubby said, turning at last to face Coomer. “Look at him! Look at what’s happened to him! That’s the reason!”

“But you’re living proof that’s something that he can control! Something that doesn’t have to hurt him!”

“You don’t--you couldn’t understand!”

“The fucking hell I couldn’t!” Coomer snapped. “He’s my son, too! You think it doesn’t break my heart seeing him like this?”

“But it isn’t your--!” Bubby cut himself off.

“My what?” 

Bubby grit his teeth.

“My  _ what,  _ Bubby?!”

“YOUR FAULT! IT ISN’T YOUR  _ FAULT!” _

Any rage that had been building in Coomer was doused instantly.

“Not my...Bubby, do you think…?” he stammered, almost at a loss for words. “This isn’t your  _ fault _ , Bubby.”

Bubby stood up, sharply, hands gripping at the side of his head.

“Don’t you see?!” he cried. “Everything that’s happened to him is my fault! Everything that’s happened since I included my DNA in his design. I should never have included my DNA. I didn’t want to! I told you I didn’t want to! Why? Why did I let you convince me?!”

Tears were streaming down Bubby’s face again.

“We agreed to include both our genetic codes together!” Coomer said. “We wanted a child. One that was  _ both  _ of us, not a clone. I’ve had enough of those. We wanted a child that would be like us both.”

“Don’t you understand? He  _ is _ like me! And I wouldn’t wish those words on anyone!” Bubby sobbed. “Seeing him like that I just--Everything they did to me. Everything they put me through--they would have done it to him, too. All the awful tests,all the cruelty, all the pain, oh god...he went through it all. Because of me!  _ They took him because of me!” _

“Bubby, we’ve talked about this a thousand times, he was sick and we were both scared. It wasn’t--”

“Not just that! I read it in his file! It wasn’t happenstance, Harold! They targeted him! Because he was on their record! Because he was…” Bubby’s voice broke. “Because he was mine. They took him because he was mine…”

He choked out a sob.

“They took him and they hurt him in every way they hurt me, and more. And now he finally gets out...and he’s just hurt more. Because he’s like me. Because he inherited my powers,” Bubby hugged his arms around himself, shaking. “Pain and misery...is all he got, all he could have ever gotten, from having me as a father…”

Coomer stood, slowly, from the bed, and placed a gentle hand on Bubby’s arm.

“Tell me how your powers work,” he said.

“You know how they work.”

“Tell me again.”

Bubby shook his head.

“I-I don’t--I can’t talk about that now,” he choked. 

“Bubby,  _ please,”  _ Harold said, insistent. 

“I...I absorb direct and...and ambient thermal and electromagnetic radiation and expend it at will, controlling...controlling my external temperature to induce localized combustion,” Bubby said, voice still shaking.

“What do you absorb?” Harold asked, his voice lilting as to imply a conclusion Bubby wasn’t drawing, but Bubby wasn’t in the mood for guessing at it.

“Damn, it Harold, why are you asking this  _ now?” _ he snapped.

“Just say it one more time, out loud. Please, Bubby.”

“For the love of God,  _ thermal radia--”  _

Bubby cut off as the pieces finally clicked into place.

“ _ Radiation, _ ” he breathed. “I absorb radiation.”

Coomer smiled, softly, as he saw realization dawn on Bubby’s face.

“ _ Gordon  _ absorbs radiation!” Bubby exclaimed, grabbing Coomer by the shoulders. “He absorbs Xen radiation! His cells absorb and expend it instead of being destroyed by it! He didn’t die from being sent to Xen because he absorbs Xen radiation! He didn’t die because...because…”

“Because he’s like  _ you,”  _ Coomer finished. “I had my suspicions from the moment they explained how Gordon was able to build up a tolerance from just the exposure to Benrey’s low levels of Xen radiation, and with so few negative repercussions. Once this happened, my suspicions were all but confirmed.”

Bubby released Coomer’s shoulders and sat heavily back down on the bed, as if his legs had been turned to gelatin. His eyes, red and puffy from crying, were wide with disbelief.

“They took him because they were cruel and evil people,” Coomer said. “He  _ lived  _ because he’s your son.”

He gently cupped Bubby’s cheek and guided his face up to look him in the eye.

“And your son needs you now,” he said. “Not to try to remove any trace of yourself from his genetic code. To show him how to accept and control what he inherited from you.”

Bubby breathed in a deep, steadying breath and nodded.

\--

When Bubby returned to the basement, Gordon was just blinking his eyes open again. 

With his facial skin growing back rapidly, his cheekbones no longer looked so gaunt and pronounced, but Bubby still saw his own defined bone structure reflected in them.

Not entirely alike, but not entirely different. 

Not entirely a stranger, but not entirely himself.

Someone who was a mix of things that weren’t him, and of things that were.

For the first time, Bubby felt like that might not be a curse after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today on: 'Things Lux is Writing Instead of Working of Their Multiple Unfinished Fics' :"Gift Fics: All the fun of an original AU with none of the set up work!"
> 
> I suggested that maybe Gordon would inherit Bubby's pyrokinesis to HoldYourBreathForNow on tumblr and they immediately whipped up "A Match Lit in the Lantern of My Heart" at light speed, which was beautiful and immediately got my brain whirring so I wrote this in response to it. I took a lot of liberties with the AUs canon, admittedly. 
> 
> Fic title is a song from the play "Aida" and the chapter titles are lyrics from the song. I also included another line from it as something Bubby says: "I wouldn't wish those words on anyone".
> 
> My thought process with Gordon's pyrokinesis and his Xen energy dependence is basically that he always had some amount of pyrokinesis, but it was only semi active. So he would passively absorb thermal/electromagnetic radiation, but had no way to expend it into flames and such, so it would sometimes just seemingly randomly spike his temperature into dangerously high fevers with no apparent cause. Being near Benrey so long as a child sort of mutated the pyrokinesis gene to allow him to also absorb Xen energy, which is why he turns into a sort of 'solar battery' instead of dying on Xen, but with the negative effect that of being then dependent of Xen energy to live.


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